Probably the most asked question in the history of midi drums, but I've been playing a bit with the demos and would like to hear any user opinons. The AD 2 demo is limited to very few kit pieces so hard to evaluate fully. The EZDrummer 2 demo was full but worked for 10 days so could play around a little more.

Both sound good and have more control than I probably need . They seem to be pretty awesome pieces of software, but quite costly (and occupy lots of space), so I plan to buy only one of them. EZ Drummer seems more intuitive to use - for example, you can drag the loop on a MIDI track and plays just like in the interface, while for AD when I drag it, it sounds quite different than in the interface (seems to be using a different kit?); or it wasn't immediate to me to understand which specific midi note was expected for which kit - info I need to program the pads.

EZ Drummer is marginally less expensive, but not so much to be really a factor.

My initial use is mostly for demo, but I'd like to learn to program realistic drums and in perspective even use them for actual productions, so long I manage to make them of the quality I need. Genre goes from acoustic songs to hard rock (no metal). Occasionally I do some fusion/jazz without the band, so there the plan would be to use the package for actual production work.

Basically the questions are like, what can I do with the one that I can't with the other (I mean, without significantly more effort)? About the built-in libraries which come with the basic package, is one of the two more flexible than the other (that's mainly for the demo angle of course). Any other aspects worth considering?

I'd previously used BFD but tried EZ Drummer, liked it, I think added an expansion pack, then upgraded to Superior Drummer and I'm now on SD3.

I'm trying to recreate the sound and feel of a real drummer (but without the turning up without their kit, not turning up at all, trying to play under the influence, not keeping tempo, not remembering what they played last time etc).

I really, really, like the way that you can audition grooves and then just drag and drop into Cubase. The quality of the bundled grooves does highlight the weaknesses in my own groove construction so I tend to start with the SD3 groove and adapt. The problem with SD3 compared to SD2 is that the groove library is massive - just too much choice.

The HD space required is also not insignificant. Initially I just downloaded the basic sounds but you do, in my opinion, need the ambient sounds in order to bring things to life. I haven't bothered with the bleed sounds as yet.

If you do go with EZD then I'm pretty sure that the upgrade path isn't too much more than going straight for the flagship package.

Somehow I ended up with both. eZDrummer does weird graphic glitches on my system but works fine. AD works great. I prefer AD as I have been using it longer and am used to it. If I spent a bit more time with it then I'm sure assembling a song with its midi patterns would be as easy as it is with AD.

and now the confession -

I'm using Logic. The built in drummer and patterns are working really well for me so far. Easier than EZ or AD. The kits, so far, sit well in my mixes. I don't spend the time eqing and adding different verbs to different kit pieces except for rolling off everything below 50Hz. I haven't needed to isolate kit pieces on their own tracks to treat them separately as they work well as a stereo mix. Could my drums sound better? - sure if I was releasing tracks on their own but I'm not, there is usually dialogue, sound effects and other noises over my tracks. Your mileage may vary.

This tread sparked my interest in trying out NI Abby road modern drummer.lets just say after 5 years of Ezdrums I have seen the light.They sound far more real to me especially the overhead mics.despite my attempt to eq the multi out channels, different room sounds, and trying some expansion packs I could never get them to sound right, But within a short space of time the Abby rd drums just sound better.as the mapping alows for a simple click on the Ezdrums midi map its a very easy process to work with my existing drum tracks.I am now keen to try some of the Kontakt sample avalible from Ndk and drumdrops etc.

The modern drummer one.Kontakt works great, as the drum mixer has ssl eq,comp,verb etc all easily tweakable to suit your mix.plenty of midi maps to suit most drums software.The sparkle kit sounds great.